Document WO 98/52379 describes the determination of the geographical location of a mobile station in a mobile communications network. The intention is to protect the integrity of a mobile station user and to prevent the location of a mobile station becoming known against the will of the user. For this purpose an authorization check is performed in conjunction with an inquiry to determine the geographical location of a mobile station. The geographical location is only determined if authorization is present for the mobile station to be determined. Said authorization check includes verification of whether a mobile station user has given consent for the location of his mobile station to be determined. The authorization check also includes that only certain third parties are informed of the geographical location of a mobile station.
Document WO 99/63780 describes a method in a telecommunications system for administering location services by using black and gray location application lists and a position gateway. When a location application subscribes to a location service, the service provider assigns to the location application a unique location application identifier number (LAIN) which is included in every position inquiry. The black list is used to bar services to location applications included in the list, while maintaining the location application profile of the location application in a position gateway. Location applications included in the gray list have access to a service, but the latter is monitored by a network unit.
It is known from 3GPP-TS 23.271 to use positional data of a mobile radio terminal user of a cellular mobile radio network for location-based services such as information about the nearest service station, etc. (“location services”=LCS). However, in some circumstances a mobile radio terminal user would wish to prevent every third party being able to obtain his current position from the mobile radio network. The mobile radio terminal user consequently requires a function which defines for every potential poller of his position from the mobile radio network whether notification of the positional data of the mobile radio terminal user to said poller is generally permitted, generally barred, or may be permitted following verification from the mobile radio terminal user. This function is referred to as the LCS user privacy function.
The LCS user privacy defined by 3GPP (3GPP standards TS 23.271 and TS 29.002) requires a relatively large amount of memory in the home location register (HLR) of the mobile radio network and in the exchange (MSC-SGSN), and creates a high load when copying conditions relating to the transmission of positional data of a user to a poller from the HLR to the exchange currently being used by the user (visited MSC/SGSN).
According to 3GPP standards TS 23.271 and TS 29.002, the LCS user privacy is stored for every subscriber in a home location register (HLR) in a plurality of privacy classes and is downloaded from the HLR to the MSC or SGSN visited by the user, whereupon an LCS user privacy function checks whether, in the case of an inquiry about the position of the mobile radio terminal (mobile terminating location request MT-LR) from a GMLC, positional data is to be transmitted to the poller. LCS privacy classes are provided for value added services, namely the call session-related class and the call session-unrelated class. In 3GPP the user can specify for each of these two classes up to 40 LCS client IDs, and for each client ID (identities of potential pollers seeking the position of the user) can define specifications relating to how the MSCs/SGSNs visited by the user are to perform the LCS user privacy check. For example it is possible to specify that the user only receives an LCS notification (that is to say a notification that someone is inquiring about his position) or that the user receives an LCS verification (that is to say a query to obtain consent from the user before transmitting his position to a poller), as well as other possibilities. If an LCS client ID is not stored in a list specified by the user, a default behavior as stipulated by the user is executed.